


(Death is a Dialogue Between) The Spirit and the Dust

by howdoyouwritenonstop



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Crimes & Criminals, Escape, Explicit Language, Ghosts, Haunting, I literally don't know how to use tags at all, I'm so sorry, Other, Survival, This is so messy, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-12 13:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5668231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howdoyouwritenonstop/pseuds/howdoyouwritenonstop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A modern AU in which Aaron Burr is fleeing justice after committing a murder--and meets a few ghosts along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

'Death is a dialogue between  
The spirit and the dust.  
"Dissolve," says Death. The Spirit, "Sir,  
I have another trust."  
  
Death doubts it, argues from the ground.  
The Spirit turns away,  
Just laying off, for evidence,  
An overcoat of clay.'

-Emily Dickinson, "Death is a Dialogue Between"

\---

It was easy to steal the stranger’s phone--easier than it should’ve been for a straight-laced uptown lawyer in his late forties, but while Burr’s experience with theft was limited, he did have a great deal of experience with being discrete. 

The woman, a tourist, left her purse open on the seat next to her as she studied the fold-out city map that sat on her lap. She was traveling alone and seemed far more concerned with making sure she didn’t miss her stop than with what happened to her personal belongings. A mistake she was unlikely to make again, Burr thought as he slid the phone into his jacket pocket. The bus was nearly empty and yet the woman had sat down next to him and left her purse wide open. It would almost be a crime for him not to take her phone.

When he reached his stop, he exited the bus and set off at a quick pace along the streets of downtown Hoboken. He had gone as far as he dared on public transportation. He desperately needed enough cash to take a cab out of New Jersey. But first, he needed to call his daughter.

Burr ducked into an alleyway to make the phone call, wary of being in an open space for too long. Hands shaking, he dialed Theo’s number and heard ringing. He was terrified that she wouldn’t answer a number that she didn’t recognize, especially right now, when her world must be crashing down around her. His heart rate quickened with every passing moment, as the phone rang twice, three times, four times, until--

“Hello?”

“Theo, sweetheart. Thank God.”

“Papa?” She had been crying. 

Burr’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Are you okay?”

“The police are here, Papa,” she said, her voice shaking. “They said-- Is it true?”

“It was an accident.” Burr’s voice was nearly a whisper. He desperately wanted to explain everything, but he was painfully aware that the call was probably being being traced. “Listen, sweetheart. I don’t have much time. I just wanted to to make sure you were alright. I love you.”

“Please just come home,” Theo said, her voice breaking. “I’m sure if it was an accident, it’ll all be okay. Please. If you run, that won’t help.”

“I’ll see you again, I promise.” Burr hung up the phone just in time to keep his daughter from hearing the heavy sob that escaped him. He dropped the phone on the ground and smashed the screen with his heel. Before he left the alley, he took a moment to compose himself. He could not afford to attract any attention. 

After a moment, he set out again, walking down the street as fast as he felt he could without arousing suspicion. He had to keep moving no matter what. He was afraid that if he stood still for too long, he was be overwhelmed by his racing thoughts, by the idea of saying goodbye to his daughter, by what had happened in Weehawken. He tried to stop thinking, focusing instead on the ringing in his ears and his pounding heart. 

Burr knew he had to head west. As the sun sank lower into the sky, he wondered how long it would take for him to walk to Pennsylvania, or if it was even possible.

_ Yesterday I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to kill a man in Weehawken and get off a bus in Hoboken twenty minutes later,  _ he thought ryely. And yet he had done the impossible. As a criminal defender he had fought relentlessly to keep men he knew to be innocent out of prison, but now he had committed a murder and simply walked away and gotten on a bus. Of course his escape was far from over, but it still seemed far too simple to be real. 

He walked on until his feet were sore, and sweat beaded on his forehead. He passed bus stations and strip centers, apartment complexes and elementary schools. He had faced physical challenges during his time in the army, but that had been a lifetime away, and had been young and resilient. Now he was older and out of shape, and everything hurt.

As he passed under the New Jersey Turnpike, he was amazed by how easy it was to be invisible, non-existent. He still needed cash and had no way to get it without taking it out of an ATM, but he felt oddly distant from that problem.

The sun disappeared below the horizon as he cut across a small park on the outskirts of a suburb. Gradually, the sound of running water entered his hearing range. Burr’s heart sank as the sound grew louder.

The Hackensack River was wide enough that in the growing darkness, Burr couldn’t quite make out the other side. His chest tightened. He knew he would hit a body of water eventually, but the river stretched on for miles, and without taking a train or walking along the busy turnpike, he had no way to cross. 

He stood on the edge of the river and looked around.  _ Maybe I could sleep here. _

__ It was a ridiculous idea. Sleeping in a public park only a few miles from where he had just killed a man was a sure way to be found by the police. But so was wandering aimlessly down the Hackensack. The truth began to dawn on Burr: it had been easy to walk away, but now he had to keep walking.

So he did. He headed south, following the river out of the park, back under the turnpike, another two hours through until he passed through Croxton and he was so exhausted he could barely keep his eyes open. He tried to follow main roads, but it was difficult in the darkness to keep from wandering down some lanes that led him further away from the turnpike. It was not long before he had no idea where he was. He had lost the river and he had lost the turnpike. 

Following the dull orange glow of the streetlights, Burr kept moving, afraid that if he stopped, he would pass out. A nondescript suburban scene stretched out before him. Dimly lit businesses and residences lined the roads. As he looked around, he noticed the images before him beginning to blur. Sleep was becoming non-negotiable. 

On one side of the road, he noticed the streetlights come to an end. He approached the expanse of darkness until he saw a sign:  _ Holy Name Cemetery _ . Burr could’ve laughed at the ridiculous irony of taking refuge in a graveyard after committing a murder a few hours before, but he lacked the energy. 

Burr trudged down a gravel lane past the graves until he spotted a small marble mausoleum surrounded by boxwood shrubs. He crossed the damp lawn, stumbling over a footstone on his way, and gently brushed aside the bushes. He curled up on the cool earth next to the marble wall, letting the bushes cover him. Satisfied that he was hidden, Burr fell into a fitful sleep.

When he awoke, he was cold and it was still dark. His back and head ached magnificently. Dew had dripped from the leaves of the bushes that surrounded him, leaving his clothes wet. He had no idea how long he had slept. The moon was in a different place in the sky, but besides that, there was no evidence any time had passed.

The sound of footsteps on the gravel path made Burr flinch. He curled into a fetal position, tightly gripping his knees. His heart leapt frantically in his chest. Through the leaves, he could see flashlight beams falling on gravestones. Burr felt a thrill of horror. 

“You don’t think he would hide  _ in  _ the mausoleum, do you?” said a voice.

“God, I hope not,” said another.

As far as Burr could tell, there were only two men, and their voices sounded youthful. A cool breeze brought  waft of cigarette smoke in his direction. He watched through the bushes as the boys meandered casually, their flashlights lighting up crosses and flowers. At least now Burr was fairly confident that these weren’t cops. Not to say that they wouldn’t call the police if they found a bedraggled man sleeping in a graveyard.

“Okay, I’m done,” the first young man said. “Dom, you can come out now! We give up!”

“Shut the fuck up, man,” the other hushed him.

“Why? There’s no one here. Dude, I think he went in. Help me open this thing.”

“I don’t think you can,” the second voice said nervously. “Come on, let’s keep looking. He’s not going to do something that fucked up.”

“He would’ve heard me and come out. Don’t be a pussy. Help me open this.”

Burr cringed as they approached the mausoleum. If they stood directly in front of the tomb and looked forward, he would be in fairly plain view. It was possible that the darkness would hide him, but if a flashlight beam fell on him, he would be very visible. On the other hand, moving didn’t seem to be an option. He tried not to breath as the young men crossed to the front of the mausoleum. His whole body tensed. 

“Shit, man, I think there’s someone back there!”

“ _ What the fuck? _ ”

The moment the light hit him, Burr exploded into action. He leapt forward, propelling himself through the bushes, and landed on his feet on the other side. His hands and arms stung from being raked by the sharp twigs. He set off sprinting, ignoring the boys’ cries of alarm behind him. Before him was a scattering of trees, and he changed course to run among them. And then he collided hard into something and was knocked almost flat on his back. 

Burr looked up to see what he had run into; it was another young man, who he assumed was Dom. The kid looked at him with wide eyes. For a second, they stood in shocked silence staring at each other, both breathing heavily. Then the boy sprinted past Burr towards his friends, who Burr could still hear shouting behind him. 

Without looking back, Burr leapt up and started to run again. He hoped he could count on a few trespassing teenagers playing a macabre game of hide-and-seek not to call the police on a vagrant sleeping in a graveyard, but he kept running for a long while nonetheless, past gravestones and trees. He didn’t stop until the voices had faded entirely, and even after that, he kept running for another minute before ducking behind a wide oak tree. 

After he caught his breath, Burr looked behind him, and saw no sign of the flashlights. He tried to remain completely still and silent so he could listen for any sound of the boys, but after several minutes, he heard nothing. 

His sides had cramped, and he was still out of breath. While in relatively good shape, Burr was dehydrated, and not used to walking all day and then running almost a mile at a full sprint. The whole thing had left him fatigued. He didn’t think the kids would call the police, but he knew it wasn’t smart to stay in the cemetery. But, good God, was he  _ tired _ . He decided for the moment that he would sit and wait for a minute or two until he felt he could move again. 

He sat for longer than he thought was wise, but his heart wouldn’t stop racing, and his migraine had returned. He could hear nothing but the singing of insects and wind in the leaves above him. His eyelids began to droop. 

_ Just another minute,  _ he promised himself. His whole body ached.  _ Just another minute of rest, and then I’ll get the hell out of here. _

Then he heard footsteps approaching. 

Burr was unable to move. Instantly, he was wide awake again, his breath caught in his throat. 

“Aaron,” a woman’s voice said. An impossibly familiar voice, even though he hadn’t heard it in ten years.

“Theodosia?” Burr sat up to see his dead wife standing among the headstones.

She wore the dress she was buried in, down to the pearl necklace he gave her on their first anniversary. Her black hair was still curled perfectly in a loose up-do. Her heavy eyelids shimmered with the silver eyeshadow that the mortician had put on, mimicking, as Burr had requested, the way she had loved to paint her elegant face in life. She tilted her head and the side of her mouth curled into a half-smile.

“I’m dreaming,” Burr whispered. 

“You’re not dreaming, dearest.”

“God--” Burr’s voice broke into a sob. His head throbbed in pain and the world swam before him. He convulsed and vomited next to the tree. 

“Aaron--”

He felt a cold hand touch his back and shrank away in revulsion.

“This is a nightmare,” Burr choked, wiping his face on his sleeve. He had broken out in a cold sweat. “This is my brain torturing me for what I did. You aren’t here. You’re not real.”

“I’m real. I’m here. Aaron, look at me.” 

Burr looked up, meeting Theodosia’s eyes. The way the shadows fell on her face accentuated her sharp features, making her appear skeletal. She reached out and touched his face, her fingers icy. He flinched but did not pull away.

“You still don’t believe I’m here,” Theodosia said, caressing his face. 

“I’m exhausted. I’m under duress. It’s logical that I should hallucinate.”

“You were always so stubborn, dearest. Not everything can be explained.”

Burr placed his hand over hers, intertwining his fingers with hers. “Are you a ghost?”

“I guess so.” Theodosia’s voice was low and smooth, like jazz. He had missed it so much.

“Why are you here? How?”

Theodosia edge behind the bushes and sat down next to Burr, her back pressed up against the trunk of the oak. “You needed me.”

“But I’ve been needing you for ten years.” 

Theodosia smiled sadly. “I want to talk about you. What you did.”

Burr exhaled deeply. “I didn’t mean for it to get to the point that it did. Everything fell apart. I’m sorry. God, I’m so fucking sorry. I’m not a murderer. I just-- don’t know what happened.”

“Yes, you do. You wanted someone dead, and then you killed him.”

“I never meant to turn into this,” Burr said. “I should let them catch me, shouldn’t I?”

“You should keep running.”

Burr sighed. “Why? I’m so tired. Jesus, I’m tired.”

“I want you to keep running for our little girl.”

“If I keep running I can never see her again.”

Theodosia tightened her grip on his hand. “If you let them catch you she’ll know her father is a murderer.”

“She already knows,” Burr said, looking away.

“She’s already heard the story the police have told her. Do you think she’ll believe it? She worships you.”

“You don’t think she’ll come to the conclusion on her own if I run?

“Maybe,” said Theodosia. “And maybe I don’t want to see you in prison either.”

“I can’t keep going like this,” Burr said. “Running was idiotic.”

“You’ll go back and turn yourself in. You’ll serve a life sentence for first degree murder. Your daughter will hate you, and worse, she’ll doubt everything about herself since she was betrayed by the man who made her who she is.”

Burr looked at her. In the years since her death, Burr had been afraid that he had mentally romanticized and exaggerated her beauty. Seeing her now, ghost or not, he knew he had been wrong. She was unearthly. He never wanted to stop looking at her.

“How can you know?”

“I  _ know, _ ” Theodosia said, “because I know you, and I know our daughter. And I’ve had time to think.”

“I miss you so much.”

“I miss you too, dearest.”

“Will I-- Will I see you again? When I die?”

Theodosia looked back at him, and for a long moment they held each other’s gaze.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Burr leaned back. The sky had gone from black to grey. Nearby, he heard birds singing. He looked out over the cemetery, taking in the bucolic scene. When he looked back to where his wife had been sitting, she was gone. 

Burr stood up. His joints ached and his vision blurred. But after a moment of clearing his head, he started walking and he kept walking, down the gravel path leading out of the cemetery, back towards the turnpike, southwest towards Pennsylvania.


	2. Chapter 2

Burr had been a little over a week at sea, and he was fairly confident that he detested ocean travel. The slightest tilt of the ship made him sick, and he hated his cramped quarters. He had spent many rough nights in the past few months that he had been on the run, but few compared to the hours he spent curled up on his cot, trying to stave off the nausea brought on by the motion of the ship.

Despite this, Burr was not one to miss out on an opportunity to improve himself. Since his time on the move had lead him through Mexico to Guatemala, he bitterly regretted having studied French in college instead of Spanish, but had made a to pick up as much of the language as he could since he had departed on the freightliner from Santo Tomas De Castilla. The man in Guatemala City who had provided his fake passport and secured his spot on the ship had urged Burr to keep his head down and not associate with other passengers and crewmembers, but this was hard for Burr. He liked the crewmembers, many of whom were young men who loved to laugh and drink, and invited him to join their card games and help him practice Spanish.

Burr was grateful to have friends. He was grateful to sleep in a bed again. In the past few months, he had begged and stolen. He had sold his watch, a gift from his daughter, back in Guatemala City to help pay for the passport. On the freighter, he seemed rid of this frantic scrambling to survive. But at least when he was sleeping on the street, the ground beneath his feet stayed still.

Nine days at sea, which meant he had eleven more days until he reached the port in the Netherlands. Kingston was a day behind them, and as he sat on the upper deck, a cigarette in one hand and beer bottle in the other, he regretted not getting off the ship for a few hours to stretch his legs. Smoking was a habit he had kicked after leaving the army, but all things considered, he allowed himself to indulge.

“ _Señor_ Edwards! Just going to sit outside in the rain all night?”

Burr turned around, smiling widely, to see one of his favorite people onboard approaching him.

Sebastian was in his early thirties, good-natured and outgoing, and he and Burr had become fast friends. He was the ship’s cook and spoke excellent, though heavily accented, English. Sebastian knew, Burr thought, that Jon Edwards was not his real name, and at the very least he knew that Burr was running from something. But the other man didn’t care, and when Burr dodged a question about his past or failed to respond to the name Edwards, Sebastian only laughed and changed the subject. Burr was not the first illegitimate passenger most of the crew members had encountered.

Similarly, Edwards was not the first alias Burr had used while on the run. Sleeping on the streets in the Tennessee he had called himself Putnam, hitchhiking through Texas he answered to Montgomery, and once in Mexico he had introduced himself--the name slipping out before he realized what he was saying--as Hamilton.

“I thought I’d sit outside and look at the stars, “ Burr said, “but I haven’t had much luck.” He gestured at the black sky.

“No stars tonight, my friend.” Sebastian sat down next to him and lit a cigarette of his own. “Rain’s only going to get worse. I’d get inside as soon as I can if I were you.”  
“What about you?”

Sebastian laughed. “Lucky for me, I don’t lose my lunch anytime we hit rough seas. You, on the other hand, better find a spot next to a latrine tonight.”  
“Have a little faith in me,” Burr said, chuckling.

But after finishing his beer and a few more cigarettes, Burr followed his friend’s advice. He stopped by the ship’s kitchen to solicit some of Sebastian’s employees for a cup of tea, and then settled into his cot to try to sleep.

Outside, the churning waves caused banging and sloshing against the hull of the ship, making Burr cringe as he drifted in and out of troubled sleep. The migraines that had become a daily reality since he left Weehawken plagued him throughout the night. Sometimes he heard frantic shouting in Spanish in the corridors, and he knew enough to glean that a storm was raging outside. In the complete darkness of his cabin, he could only hope that someone would remember to retrieve him if an emergency took place.

Somewhere, hours into this nightmare, he was jolted awake by a scream. In a moment, his drowsiness disappeared, and Burr was flooded with adrenaline. He stood, his heart and head throbbing, and groped in the blackness for the door handle.

When he flung open the cabin door, he was bathed in a dull red light that pulsed rhythmically with the sound of a distant alarm. Panic ignited within him like wildfire, and he whipped around to see that the hallways were empty. He ran in the direction of the nearest crew cabins. He sprinted around a corner and nearly collided full on with a crewman.

The young man’s eyes were wide with panic, and a life jacket covered his sailor uniform. He shouted wildly in Spanish, his voice cracking. He couldn’t have been older than seventeen. He had clearly come from on deck, as his hair was plastered to his wet face. “ _¡Fuera de aquí! ¡Fuera!_ ”

“What--” Burr stammered. “What’s happening? Shit. I don’t-- _No hablo_ \--” Every Spanish phrase he had learned in the past few days seemed to have evacuated his mind. “ _¿Qué? ¿Qué?_ ”

The boy looked at him, confused. He seemed to be struggling to remember English words as well. He stammered out a few more attempts at explanation before he said, “ _Huracán. Hurricane!_ ”

“Hurricane?” Burr said, his voice almost a scream. “Sweet Jesus. I can’t-- Fuck. I can’t swim. _Yo no_ swim. No swim!”

The young sailor’s face fell. He struggled for words that Burr would understand, clearly at a loss as to why Burr was on the ship at all. After a moment, he unbuckled his life jacket and shoved it against Burr’s chest. “ _¡Fuera!_ Up, up!” He pointed frantically upwards.

“Which way? Jesus fucking Christ.” Burr felt a heavy weight on his chest. He pointed the way the boy had come. “That way? That way to-- up?”

“ _Sí, sí, sí_ ,” the boy said. He began to run in the opposite way down the hall. “Go! _¡Fuera!_ ”

Burr stood stunned for a moment as the boy disappeared down the corridor. Where could he possibly be going? But that was clearly not a question he would be able to find the answer to, and there was no reason to wonder about it. Burr pulled on the life jacket and started to run.

He sprinted around a corner and up some thin metal steps, his head throbbing with the rhythm of the pulsing red light. He felt an unnerving tightness across his chest as he ran. Near above him, he heard frantic shouting in Spanish. Up another set of stairs and suddenly he was in the midst of a flurry of activity. An officer appeared to be trying to gather as many sailors as possible to head downstairs to wherever the damage was. Burr felt a rush of euphoria as he saw Sebastian among the crowd of men. Burr called out to him.

“ _Señor_ Edwards,” Sebastian said, rushing towards him.

“What the hell is happening?” Burr said, his voice shaking.

“Damage to the ship,” the cook said. “You to need get out of the way.”

“What? Aren’t we evacuating?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet.”

“ _¡Mendez, vete aquí!_ ” someone shouted from across the hall.

Sebastian looked around frantically, but Burr grabbed his shoulder.

“Aren’t we getting off the ship?” Burr shouted over the chaos. “Life-boats?”

“Not yet,” said Sebastian. “It can be repaired. You wait, and I will come to you.”

“Wait where?” Burr was incredulous. “While we’re sinking?”

“We’re not sinking. Just-- wait.” Sebastian took Burr by the arm and pulled him down the hallway. He flung open door after door until he found what appeared to be a crew cabin. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

“Fuck, I can’t just sit here until--”

“Wait.” Sebastian turned back and slammed the door behind him, submerging Burr in darkness once again.

Burr wanted to scream in frustration. He wanted to pound on the walls and run outside, slamming the door behind him, and make someone tell him exactly what was going on. But the logical side of his brain knew he had to wait. So he waited.

He switched on the greenish fluorescent lights of the cabin and sat on a cot. He hated this feeling of complete powerlessness. Burr had been fortunate, he reflected, to enjoy a fair amount of control in his adult life, whether in his home or in court. When he found himself with Theo, or his friends, or in front of a jury, he was in his element. But here he was a man with no experience with ocean travel aboard a ship he was not supposed to be on, running for his life, completely dependent on the help of others. Burr knew the value of asking for help--often he would do so just to inflate the ego of someone that he needed to like him--but he preferred ultimately to be independent. And that was something he had lost hold of entirely.

The sound of crewmen's voices outside had quieted, but he could still hear the sound of waves crashing against the side of the freightliner. He laid down on his side as the minutes stretched into an hour. He stared at the back wall of the cabin, where--thank God--there was no porthole.

Burr’s reverie was interrupted by a slow metallic scraping as the cabin door opened and closed behind him. He jolted up and turned around, and immediately felt the air evacuate his lungs.

He recognized the woman standing in the doorway, but she looked remarkably different from the pictures he had seen growing up. Relatives had probably made effort that Burr and his sister had only seen pictures of the tall beautiful woman at her healthiest. But as Esther Burr stood before him now, she was thin and gaunt, how she had looked after her body had been ravaged by cancer, how she had looked at a funeral that Burr had been too young to remember.

For the second time, since Burr had started running, he felt his blood freeze in his veins. He was terrified but strangely relieved. Perhaps Theodosia had not been a delusion after all, and if she was-- well, at least here was some continuity in the form of his dead mother visiting him on board a Guatemalan freight ship in the middle of a hurricane.

“Hello, Mother,” Burr said quietly.

“Hello, dear one,” she said, smiling, the shadows falling harshly on her gaunt face. She was so young, only a few years older than Theo was now. And she looked so much like Theo. There was something so grotesque about seeing a face so like his daughter’s starved and sick and dead. Burr was now almost twice the age his mother had been when she died. Seeing her in front of him, talking and moving, terrified him more than even the shock of the first apparition he had seen.

Esther knelt by the cot where Burr sat, looking up at him. “I’m sorry, Aaron. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

“You couldn’t help it,” he muttered, struck nearly dumb by the absurdity of comforting a ghost, or his own delusion, or whatever this was. “You died. I don’t believe that it ruined me.”

“No,” she said. “Of course not. I’m so proud of everything you’ve become, dear one. You are so brilliant, so much more than everything I dreamed you could grow up to be.”

“You don’t know who’ve I’ve grown up to be.”

“Of course I do, Aaron.”

“I’m a murderer. I killed someone over--God, over nothing. Because I felt threatened. Because I’m a coward and I ran away. And I’ll live the rest of my life without seeing my daughter again. I won’t be there for her, and I chose this.”

His mother looked at him. “You weren’t the only one who brought a gun though, were you?”

“I was the only one who fired a gun.” Burr wouldn’t meet her eye. “I was the one who shot and I was the one who survived. It doesn’t matter if they find the gun on him. To the world I’m a murderer. That’s the legacy your only son left, Mother.”

“Listen to me,” she said. “Nothing is more important than your child, Aaron.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“Then find a way to see her again, or speak to her. If you want to run, then run. But do not live the rest of your life not even trying to reach her.”

“That’s impossible,” Burr said. “She must despise me.”

“It doesn’t matter. You ran away from her daughter. Find a way to tell her you love her.”

Like the ghost of his wife had instructed him to protect himself above all else months before, now the ghost of his mother told him to protect Theo. It was the battle that his mind had been engaged in since he looked down at the man he had killed in Weehawken-- _How can I save myself? How can I save my daughter?_

Burr felt he’d had his fill of advice from the dead.

“When you go back to where you came from, will you see Hamilton?”

For a moment the apparition of Esther Burr didn’t speak. “Perhaps. I don’t think that’s up to me.”

“I guess I’ll find out soon enough if I don’t get off this boat.” Burr felt inexplicably calm. His pulse for self-preservation at any cost had, for a moment, ceased. He wondered if he would ever feel it again. “At any rate, if you do, tell him-- Tell him I’m the one who paid for it.”

There was a roar as waves slammed against the side of the ship, and his mother was gone.

He exited the cabin, walking like a man possessed, still overwhelmed by calm. The floor in the vestibule was wet. Somehow, his feet lead him to grated metal stairs, and before long, he heard the violent downpour of rain on the deck, and distant shouts in Spanish. He imagined he had been forgotten. The thought did not panic him. He stood still for a moment before he climbed on deck-- once again, for however brief a moment, the master of his own destiny.

If he stayed below deck, he would probably drown. If he went above deck, he would likely be washed overboard and probably drown. Even if he was able to get a place on a life raft and survive the wrathful storm long enough to be rescued, it was possible that he would be somehow identified and returned to American authorities, making his months of desperate flight completely futile. Among these choices, only one contained the slim hope for survival, and at that moment, the choice was Burr’s to make.

_How can I save myself? How can I save my daughter?_

Burr pulled open the hatch and stepped out into the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I checked my Spanish the best I could but it might be totally wrong so sorry to any Spanish speakers.


End file.
